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Having trouble installing a piece of hardware? Want to know if that peripheral is compatible with Linux?

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I have been working with Fedora linux for many years but I am not a programmer. I do like to experiment with non-rpm based projects and have had some success. But I recently got an Easycap dc60 video capture adaptor and can't get it to work. It has a linux driver found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/easycapdc60/. The driver expects a device from Syntek Semiconductor with usb id 05e1:0408 but it turns out I've received a knock-off from Somagic Inc with usb id 1c88:0007. I can compile the Easycap driver with no problem and the module gets loaded. However, it is supposed to run devices easycap0 and easysnd0. These are never created. The C program that is supposed to create them names their location as /usb/easycap%d and /usb/easysnd%d which don't normally exist in my Fedora 12 installation, but I don't know if that makes a difference. The actual dongle does show up as a usb connection but no devices are created and the driver is not bound. I tried changing the vendor and product id's in easycap.h but it doesn't make any difference after recompiling. Nor could I find anything I could fix in etc/udev/rules.d/57-easycap.rules. Except that I did try changing the vendor and product id in that udev rules file too. Perhaps this dongle is not such a good copy after all. My computer is a Dell Studio 1557 with Intel Core i7. edited /log/message and full lsusb follow.
Any suggestions? --Brian

I'm the author of the easycapdc60 driver. In principle a linux driver can always be changed to accommodate new hardware, but this is feasible only if the new hardware is related in some way to the hardware for which the driver was originally written.

Your "EasyCAP" is a bit of a puzzle. If I do a Google "advanced search" for

this exact wording or phrase: 05e1:0408

I get 1290 hits. If I do a Google "advanced search" for

this exact wording or phrase: 1c88:0007

I get 2 hits, one of which is this thread itself. If I visit the website at

www dot somagic dot com dot cn slash english slash products1.asp

I cannot see any products named SM-USB 007 or SMBL007.

In the circumstances I'd have to be pessimistic about getting this thing to work with Linux.

Thanks Mike for replying. I won't obsess much longer. But can you tell me how to define an undefined parameter like EASYCAP_NEEDS_USBVIDEO_H ? As you say in easycap.h it has to be defined externally, say, as a 'compiler option'. Thanks again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rmt1947

Hi Brian,

I'm the author of the easycapdc60 driver. In principle a linux driver can always be changed to accommodate new hardware, but this is feasible only if the new hardware is related in some way to the hardware for which the driver was originally written.

Your "EasyCAP" is a bit of a puzzle. If I do a Google "advanced search" for

this exact wording or phrase: 05e1:0408

I get 1290 hits. If I do a Google "advanced search" for

this exact wording or phrase: 1c88:0007

I get 2 hits, one of which is this thread itself. If I visit the website at

www dot somagic dot com dot cn slash english slash products1.asp

I cannot see any products named SM-USB 007 or SMBL007.

In the circumstances I'd have to be pessimistic about getting this thing to work with Linux.

Any of the undefined parameters can be turned on by adding lines to the file src/easycap.h immediately after the line "#define EASYCAP_H". The syntax is:

#define EASYCAP_NEEDS_USBVIDEO_H

as a line on its own. But random changes of this kind will normally simply result in a failed build. In order to see more details about why the USB subsystem does not allocate the easycapdc60 driver to your EasyCAP it's better to edit the file ./install.sh so that the line "DEBUG=0" becomes

DEBUG=9

If you then reinstall the driver and plug in the EasyCAP you will see more diagnostics in /var/log/messages.

I feel you have been a bit unlucky with your EasyCAP. I guess in your place I'd consider cutting my losses and buying another one ($10) from a source you trust. There are a variety of EasyCAPs out there and some work better than others, but I haven't previously heard of one quite as problematic as yours from Somagic (if indeed that it what it is).

I'm new to the fedora system and have a easycap dc60 that I can't compile the lattest version due to something with the headers the lib modules that it's looking for is at /lib/modules not /usr/src/lib/modules what should I do to correct it?

If so, I'm surprised that the compilation is failing - it ought to work. (There was a problem with the build path in very early versions of the driver, but that was repaired months ago.) It would be useful to know what messages you are getting when you run the command